Rancid-Tea

Fun Times

Lately Ethan has been very busy because he has finals coming up, so I made plans with Metogan to hang out for the afternoon yesterday. We first went to see Fracture which was pretty good. Towards the end I pretty much knew what was happening, but it was good nonetheless.

Afterward, we went to the mall of america for some clothes shopping. I got a few things: one skirt, two pairs of pants and two shirts. It’s nice to have a few new article of clothing, since I often feel like I wear the same 5 pairs of pants every week.

We went to cold stone creamery to get some ice cream before leaving, and were greeted by some very bad high school aged employees. Due to their poor service Metogan got a free shake, so it all worked out in the end.

Updates

I decided to join the fad and update my links so that they look all pretty. What was ‘responses.php?postid=NNN’ became ‘responses.php/NNN’ and now more recently ‘viewpost/NNN.html’, but you can still reach the new pages from old links, so peeps don’t have to update their links. Neato.

There have been a couple of other updates lately. Now the tags on posts are linkable and you can search by them. I’m thinking of adding a ‘popular posts’ section, but that might be a few weeks out.

I am realizing that there should be some sort of formatting options for replying to posts. Currently you can do HTML formatting, but that doesn’t help a lot of people. I also have a few other ideas up my sleeve. I only get a few hours a week to work on the site though, so it may be slow in coming.

*Xs changed to Ns after some interesting google ads started showing up…

Things to remember when making brownies

I made some brownies on Sunday. They were the first brownies I ever made. I don’t even recall ever helping my mom make them, so I was totally relying on the recipe I found to guide me through. Some things I learned:

1. It’s important to really read the directions, especially when they say “turn out cool brownies.”
2. Warm brownies don’t ‘turn out’ they flop out.
3. Warm flopped out brownies aren’t pretty.
4. It isn’t easy to frost warm brownies
5. It is really easy to make vegan brownies, if you buy nice chocolate
6. Even though melted 100% chocolate looks like regular chocolate, and you desperately want to lick it off of your hand or the spoon, it doesn’t taste good without sugar. Just avoid getting it in your mouth altogether. Chomping on a chunk of un-melted chocolate should be avoided at all costs.
7. Ugly brownies taste just as good as pretty brownies, so don’t worry if yours turn out like mine

Earth Day And Google

Earth Day is today, so maybe we should all pick up a piece of garbage left out on the street, and try not to create any excessive waste, while contemplating how long our planet can provide for us… I am only aware that it’s Earth Day because of Google‘s logo. For those of you who don’t see this until it’s gone, it is an iceberg melting into the ocean… It may not be as festive as usual, but it IS rather moving.

Reasons not to splurge

I just read an interesting post on GetRichSlowly.org, How to Fight the Urge to Splurge. At the very end, the author makes a point I hadn’t thought about much — making impulse purchases deprives you of the ability to research your purchase. Even if you already know what you want to buy, you might not necessarily know the best place to buy it from. Just because you find yourself in Sears standing in front of the item you want, doesn’t mean you couldn’t get it cheaper by walking down the street a few blocks or going online.

I try not to make any impulse purchases that cost more than $10 or $20, and then only if I really want that item, but sometimes, when there is something big that I want, I don’t always take the time I should to price check between stores.

Shootings…

I’ve seen a few things in the news about the recent shootings at a college. I don’t know many details, but all I can think is that it is so sad that people who end up shooting up buildings have no one that they feel they can reach out to, and no one feels like they should reach out to these people. In a society where anonymity is not just easy to attain, but difficult to avoid, it becomes easier and easier for individuals to slip through the cracks.

We will probably never know at this point what causes someone to go from being withdrawn to being homicidal, but I have to think that it’s possible that it would only take one person to take an active interest and either guide this person to find professional help, or to simply care about them enough to keep them on the level. Unfortunately there’s no way to figure that out.

Want to stop teens from having sex?

You’ll have to try more drastic means than just telling them it’s a bad idea. Abstinence only sex ed does not decrease sexual activity in teens, maybe it’s because they’re teens with raging hormones who want to have healthy sex. Maybe next they’ll start chemically castrating kids who have sex ‘too early’. If the government really wants to stop kids from engaging in sexual behavior, that’s probably they’re best bet — some people might not like it though.

Henna

I’m sitting here once again with a bunch of henna in my hair, skillfully applied by Ethan. I’ve finally used up my henna stores, and now I have to order more. I’m not sure if I want to get the same stuff again, or maybe order stuff in bulk, instead of in a box. The Light Mountain Natural Henna I’ve been using comes with gloves and a ‘cap’ that I don’t use. It’s also a waste of packaging if you ask me. If anyone has suggestions about where to buy henna with less packaging, please let me know.

Money

I keep thinking about money recently. For people our age/situation/income level, Ethan and I have quite a bit of money. This is probably due to two main factors:

1. We both have parents who were willing and able to pay for our college education.
2. We both have parents who taught us the value of saving money and living within our means.

I’ve known plenty of people who had neither of these advantages and live paycheck to paycheck (I also know a few people who DID have these advantages who live paycheck to paycheck — James comes to mind as an example). It can be very easy to make frivolous and unwise financial decisions when you have money in your hands and aren’t thinking about the future.

Currently we have most of our savings in high interest money market accounts and revolving CDs. Ethan’s parents are nice enough to have started a retirement savings for him, and although it doesn’t have much in it right now, if he never contributed another dollar to it, by the time Ethan is 60, it would have almost $80K. We plan on adding to it.

This has me thinking about starting a retirement account for myself. I’m sure that most people my age aren’t thinking about this, but I know that the earlier I start, the better, and I also know that with no income, $80K will only last about 2 to 3 years, depending on how frugally one can live. Also, it would be really nice to have my retirement savings entirely separate from other savings, so as to prevent us from dipping into retirement when we decide to buy a house. The only thing standing in my way at this point is that the IRAs I’ve been looking at all require $3000 to start. I could afford this, but I feel hesitant to pull that much out of savings to get it started. I just got my raise to my full pay at work, so now I’ll be bringing home an extra $200 per paycheck and that will certainly ease my mind about making a big chunk of money suddenly inaccessible for the next 40 years.

This Summer, Ethan will be working full time and we’ll have about double our current income for three months. Probably that will be enough financial padding to make me take the plunge and start my retirement fund. Until then, I’ll have to not retire.

Dad’s 50th

My Dad’s 50th birthday fell on easter this year. To avoid having no one show up because of conflicting plans, my parents held the party on Saturday. All five of my Dad’s sisters showed up, neither of his two brothers could make it (one lives in Texas and the other in California) plus four significant others and his mother. My mom’s two sisters and her brother made it there, along with one significant other… There were two couples who were just friends, no relation. James and Jen came too… Including my parents, Ethan and I, there were 24 people at the party.

Normally our big family events leak outside so that everyone has some breathing room, but unusually low temperatures kept us all in the kitchen. It was very noisy and crowded but I think everyone had a really good time. Especially after my aunt gave my dad a blow-up doll nurse. I’m pretty sure his mom didn’t know what it was, but everyone else got a good laugh out of it. I can honestly say I never, ever thought I would see my dad or any of my extended family playing with a blow-up doll. I guess sometimes life surprises you.